


Ethics for Beginners

by Sholio



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:29:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post-5x09 (therefore ANGSTY AS HELL and going to be jossed on Thursday night). Neal and Peter are both angry. Neal is sick. Something has to give.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ethics for Beginners

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frith_in_thorns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frith_in_thorns/gifts).



> I asked Frith a little while back what sort of thing she might want for Fandom Stocking, and she said that she liked the idea of Neal fainting. So I set out to write a fluffy little sickfic in which Neal faints, and ended up writing 9000 words of post-5x09 ANGST. Oops?

It was the stress that did it, Neal knew ... the stress and Peter's stupid germs, which had been the gift that kept giving in the White Collar office for the last month. Just as one agent got over the flu, another one came down with it.

Neal hadn't slept in two days, and at first he attributed his headache and the uncomfortable brightness of the office lights to sleep deprivation and too much coffee. The not sleeping was Peter's fault, and if he was getting sick then that was _definitely_ Peter's fault. As well as many other things. Neal glared sullenly at Peter over the conference room table.

Peter glared back.

 

***

 

Neal hated fighting with Peter. It never got any easier or any more fun. The fact that Peter was sulking _back_ should have made it less emotionally debilitating -- the worst part was usually that Peter stopped being mad a lot faster than Neal did and started being conciliatory and apologetic, which meant Neal had to deal with guilt and Peter's puppy-dog eyes and let's-make-up cups of coffee on top of whatever made him mad in the first place.

But instead, Peter being hurt and sullen back at him just made him miss Peter's sly grins and smart-aleck comments even more than he already did. Which in turn made him madder, because he didn't _want_ to miss those things and Peter was a _stupid jerk_ and Neal was never going to forgive him and wow, was it too hot in here or was it just him?

Stupid stupid Peter and his stupid stupid germs.

Going home meant admitting weakness. Besides, going home also meant being surrounded by the window pieces and the Codex pages. He had things to do, a puzzle to unravel, Rebecca to romance; he couldn't afford to be sick right now.

He felt worse and worse as the day wore on -- achy, nauseated, weak. He kept glancing up at Peter's office to see if Peter had noticed that he was bravely sticking it out in the face of _deathly illness_ , and properly appreciating his sacrifice, but Peter wasn't looking in his direction at all. That wasn't right. Peter never went very long without glancing Neal's way, and he usually seemed to have a sixth sense for when Neal was looking at him.

Not today. Today, Peter had his head bent over paperwork and never looked up at all.

Not that Neal wanted him to. That would be ridiculous.

"Hey, Neal, you okay?" Blake asked, passing his desk.

"Fine," Neal snapped.

Jones was the next to bother him. "Hey, Caffrey, you look awful. You doing all right? I know something's going on with you and Peter --"

"Nothing is going on with me and Peter."

"Uh huh." Jones gave him a long look and then stepped away from Neal's desk. He was one of the few people in the office who hadn't yet succumbed to even a mild case of what everyone had started calling the Peter Plague. "Caffrey, if you're sick, go home."

"I am not sick," Neal said, straightening up and putting on the best con-face that he could.

A couple of hours later, he was sincerely regretting trying to tough it out as he crouched in the bathroom, shivering and trying not to throw up. When he finally managed to win the battle over his stomach, a wave of dizziness washed over him as he stood up. It helped that he hadn't eaten anything since -- when, anyway? He'd been too furious last night to be hungry; he'd just poured himself a glass of wine and gotten to work on the Codex.

The idea of alcohol sent another spasm wringing through his stomach and he closed his eyes and clung to the sink. When it passed, he dipped a handful of water and splashed it on his face. _I can get through this day and then --_ Well, he'd figure out what would happen next. Right now all he could think about was getting through this interminable day.

He returned to his desk and slouched in misery, glowering at Peter's office and willing Peter to look down and notice that Neal was _martyring himself_ for a job he didn't even get _paid for._

People were starting to avoid his desk, though he wasn't sure if that was because they could tell (somehow) that he was sick, or because he glared at anyone who came close.

"You have the plague, don't you," Jones said from a discreet distance, one hand over his nose and mouth.

"I do _not,_ " Neal snapped, hearing his own voice crack.

"I'm having Peter send you home."

"Fine!" Neal shot at his back.

A few minutes later, Peter came down from his office and prowled over to Neal's desk. "Are you sick?" he asked, giving Neal a sharp once-over.

"No," Neal said sullenly. It was, he was discovering, impossible to be stiff with indignation and also drooping in misery so obvious that it would be obvious from a hundred yards away in a heavy fog. He had a bad feeling that the end result made it look like something was wrong with his spine.

"Neal, go home."

"You don't believe me about _not being sick?_ This is a theme now, I presume?"

"This isn't a game, Neal," Peter said, and something in his voice made Neal look up at his face rather than glaring at his belt buckle. Peter looked ... exhausted, mostly. And angry. And somewhat sick himself -- there was a gray tinge to his face, and dark circles under his eyes.

"I know it's not," Neal said, holding Peter's stare.

Peter broke the staring contest by looking away. (Ha, Neal thought, I win.) "Great. You're an adult; if you say you're fine, you're fine. Conference room in half an hour; let's see what everyone has on the Hartman case." He turned away and headed for his office.

That wasn't how it was supposed to go. "So I get credit for being an adult now?" Neal demanded of Peter's back, but sniping wasn't really fun anymore, especially since Peter's shoulders were slumped as if a great weight was crushing him.

Neal ground his pen into the form he was filling out, hard enough to punch through the paper. He had to pull out a new one and start over.

_I don't need you. I don't care if you care if I'm sick. I don't care if you're angry and hurt -- it's only what you deserve for hurting ME. Not to mention infecting me with your PLAGUE._

He glanced up at Peter's office in the hopes of catching Peter in the act of sympathy, only to see Peter with his head resting in his hands. Neal looked away quickly, back to his form.

 _I'm only staying here until this thing with Hagen is resolved,_ he told himself, and tried to shake off another cold chill that swept through him. He really did feel appalling, and it was _entirely_ Peter's fault. So.

 

***

 

It had not escaped Peter's notice that the whole office was tiptoeing around him and Neal. They might not know exactly what was going on, but they had not failed to notice that _something_ was.

They _were_ trained investigative agents, after all.

Neal looked awful, but since he clearly wasn't going to admit to being sick, Peter figured that having to fill out paperwork with a splitting headache was probably a character-building experience for him.

Besides, he felt fairly shitty himself. In all his years working for the Bureau, he'd only come to work with a hangover a couple of times -- inevitably either work- or Neal-related. Which this was too, in a sense, he supposed. No ... that wasn't really fair. But the fact remained that he'd stayed up most of the night drinking, in the hopes of stopping his mind and heart from tearing him apart. Instead he'd ended up drunk _and_ miserable. At least his hangover made it hard enough to concentrate on work that he didn't have much spare brainspace for thinking about Neal.

He'd been drinking more since he got the ASAC job, which bothered him. It wasn't something he had generally resorted to in the past, but lately it felt like everything was caving in around him. He was tired all the time; not only were his hours even longer than when he'd been a field agent, but he had trouble sleeping, waking from nightmares -- of prison, of Siegel, of Neal dead or jailed or vanished, leaving nothing but his cut tracker behind. Finding out the truth behind Neal's strange behavior hadn't been the release of tension he'd hoped for; instead it had sent him spiraling deeper, and he wasn't sure where bottom was.

_I want ... I don't even know what I want._

_I want this never to have happened. I want to look in the mirror and see someone I like and respect, not a hypocrite who's as much of a criminal as the people he arrests. I want to believe in my job and in myself._

_I want my friend back._

_I want MYSELF back._

He wanted to forgive Neal. Being angry at Neal, and worse, staying angry at Neal ... it _hurt._ But that was how he'd gotten into this mess, wasn't it? He kept forgiving Neal, kept giving him second chances, until it had ended up just like everyone always said it would -- just like Kramer said, just like Hughes said. He'd ended up becoming a criminal himself, unworthy of his badge, and he didn't know how to make it better, didn't even know if he could.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled himself together -- _Cowboy up, Burke_ \-- and grabbed the stack of files on his desk. He almost collided with Jones on the way out.

"This is the doorway of my office, Jones, not a bus stop."

"Peter, have you gotten any work done all day?"

"I've _been_ working," Peter defended himself, holding up the stack of files.

"You've been staring at Caffrey's tracking data and brooding," Jones said. When Peter glowered at him, he raised his hands placatingly. "Look, I don't know exactly what's going on between you and Neal right now. One thing I do know, though, is that when things aren't good with you two, it affects the whole office."

Peter looked down into the bullpen, where Neal was slumped at his desk. "This isn't the sort of thing we can work out with a little chat, you know."

"I know it's probably more complicated than that. Still, if there's anything I can do ..."

"I'll tell you," Peter said, not with anger but firmly enough to let him know the conversation was over.

His team trickled into the conference room. Neal was one of the last in; he was pale and wobbly-looking, and he sank into a chair along the wall rather than walking the extra five steps to an unoccupied chair at the table. He glanced up, saw Peter looking at him, and scowled.

Peter, not to be outdone, scowled back. _I know you're angry,_ he attempted to project with that look, _but keep it out of the office. We're not five._

 _Oh really? I will when you will,_ Neal's sulky glare replied.

As Peter went over the case evidence, he couldn't stop himself from frequent glances toward Neal. Neal was clearly not paying much attention to the briefing; his head tilted slowly to rest against the wall, and his eyes kept drifting shut. Occasional shivers wracked him. If whatever he'd caught was the same thing Peter had suffered through -- and it looked very similar -- then he must be miserable.

_No wonder people kept trying to get me to go home, if that's what I looked like._

"That's it, everybody," he said, and Neal started awake, blinking. "Lacey, you'll head a surveillance team; Rivers, you have the research end of things."

"Where do you want me, boss?" Jones asked.

A snappish retort rose to his lips but he managed to bite it back. He'd been snapping at the smallest things lately; just this morning he bit the head off one of the probies for not refilling the coffee machine. The problem was, he was increasingly finding it hard to care about the everyday minutiae of the White Collar office's daily business. He used to live and breathe that stuff. Now he had to struggle to give a damn. It just didn't seem to matter. Nothing did.

"You can help Lacey's team put their surveillance plan together," he said, and Jones nodded and turned to go. "Hey, Neal. You planning to stay here?"

"No, no, I'm up," Neal muttered -- croaked, rather. He braced a hand on the wall and lurched to his feet.

The color instantly drained from his face. "Peter," he said in a small voice, and crumpled.

Peter was already leaping forward before he even realized he was moving, catching Neal as his knees buckled and easing him to the floor. Jones spun around at the commotion. "What just happened?"

"Neal fainted," Peter said, loosening Neal's tie and trying not to sound as freaked out as he felt. Neal's face was milk-pale, but he was breathing okay. 

Jones crouched beside them. "Want me to call a medic?"

"I think he's okay. He's got that flu that's going around." Neal's lips were cracked and dry. Peter wondered if he'd had anything to drink except coffee all day.

Jones scrambled hastily to his feet. "Well. Since it looks like you've got it in hand, I'll just get back to work ..."

Peter couldn't help grinning -- it might be the first time he'd smiled all day. "Could you bring up a bottle of water first?"

"Can do, boss." Jones escaped with obvious relief.

Neal groaned and gave a small, dry cough, his eyes fluttering open. "What," he managed faintly.

"Hey. Don't move." Peter planted a hand on his chest, holding him in place. "You collapsed. How about you stay there 'til the room stops spinning."

"Not listening to you anymore," Neal said, but he stopped resisting and closed his eyes again.

Jones reappeared with a bottle of water, handed it to Peter from the maximum possible distance, and retreated.

"It's not _that_ contagious," Peter said.

"Tell that to the half of the office you infected," Jones called, already having made it to a safe distance.

A little color was starting to return to Neal's face. Peter put an arm behind his shoulders, helping him sit up enough to take sips of the water. He could feel the heat baking off Neal; definitely a fever, definitely the flu.

"You need to go home," Peter said.

"Look who's talking," Neal muttered, snatching the bottle out of Peter's hand. "I know who to blame for this."

Peter's already frayed temper wanted to flare at this, but unfortunately he couldn't help admitting it was true, on both counts. "I'll drive you. Unless you'd rather stay here on the floor."

"Fine," Neal said sullenly, the capitulation a clear indication of how bad he must feel. After a couple abortive attempts to get up on his own, he let Peter help him.

"I'm going home for the day," Peter informed the office as he gave Neal an assistive shoulder down the stairs. It was pretty close to five, anyway.

A path instantly opened up between them and the door. Clearly no one had a problem with this.

 

***

 

It was all Neal could do not to pass out again in the elevator. Dark spots whirled in his vision, and then Peter was saying his name and making him sit down and put his head between his knees. The awkward position made him gag, and his head felt like it was going to split in two.

He really couldn't remember the last time he'd been this sick. He was going to _kill_ Peter -- but first maybe he'd let Peter give him a hand to the parking garage. Just this once.

And for all his gruff words, for all the anger and hurt that currently lay between them, Peter's hands were gentle and he took his time, letting Neal stop whenever he needed to catch his breath. Eventually Neal was deposited into the passenger seat of Peter's car. The trip uptown passed in a blur, and then Peter was helping him into June's, again with infinite patience and gentleness as they made slow, lurching progress up the stairs. Neal stopped in a panic halfway up, then remembered that he _had_ put away the Codex pages (he was fairly sure) and hidden their heist plans before leaving in the morning, on principles of general paranoia.

There were no exclamations or recriminations from Peter when they made their halting way into Neal's apartment, which presumably meant that things were indeed out of sight, though Neal's head hurt too badly to look around.

"I'm just going to head downstairs and see if June has cold medicine around," Peter said after letting him down onto the couch. "Does Mozzie have any more of that bee stuff?" He glanced toward the terrace, now empty of bees.

"I'm not taking the bee stuff," Neal mumbled into the couch.

"It really works."

Neal pressed his face into the couch and ignored him. When Peter's footsteps eventually retreated, he gathered himself enough to get off the couch -- waiting out another surge of dizziness -- and collected his pajamas, which he took into the bathroom with him.

He was just going to get a drink of water and change, but he ended up taking a shower, in the hopes that Peter would be gone when he got out. It did make him feel a little better, and when he finally staggered out of the bathroom, in pajamas with his hair slicked down to his head, he just wanted to drag himself to the bed and collapse.

Peter was, indeed, gone (Neal told himself that was a good thing) but Mozzie was there, plumping the pillows on the bed. Neal stopped and gave him a look; Mozzie got out of the way so Neal could wobble to the bedside.

"The Suit said you were ailing."

"Thanks to him," Neal groaned, crumpling in a barely controlled fall into the stack of pillows.

"I brought an entire case of --"

"Oh God," Neal mumbled, facedown on the bed.

"I have testimonials," Mozzie said. "From _feds._ Which normally I would consider an unreliable source in the extreme, but in this case --"

"Fine, fine, just give it to me." Without lifting his head from the pillows, Neal blindly held out a hand for the vial of honey extract.

Mozzie brought him not only that, but a cup of soup courtesy of June's cook (a few spoonfuls were all he could get down) and some painkillers of dubious provenance, and then stood over him until he drank a whole bottle of water. He drifted off to sleep to the sound of Mozzie turning the pages of his book.

 

***

 

Peter hadn't really meant to go back over to Neal's tonight. He knew the little guy was there, so Neal wouldn't be alone. And right now he suspected that both of their frayed tempers were too short to deal with each other outside the relatively controlled office environment. They'd probably end up in another screaming fight, and Neal was in no shape for it.

However, after he'd gone through two beers while vacantly staring at Neal's tracking data (mostly just staring at the little dot at 5026 Riverside) El settled a gentle hand on his shoulder and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "I know you want to be there."

"I'm the last person who should be there," Peter said. His voice came out morose and weary, even to his own ears.

"He'll cool off, Peter. He'll forgive you. He always does." El rested her cheek on top of his head, and he leaned back into her warmth. "And you'll forgive him. _You_ always do."

"I don't know if this time ..." Peter trailed off. It was hard to explain, made worse because he and El seemed to have finally run headlong into a gulf between them that couldn't ever truly be bridged. It wasn't a threat to their marriage, which remained rock-solid; and they could reach across it, as they always did. But he didn't think she understood, could ever understand, why this cut him so deeply -- the way it had struck at the core of everything he valued about himself, everything he aspired to be.

 _You'll forgive him. You always do._ And she was right, he knew. He'd forgive. He just wasn't sure if it would be good for either of them if he did.

El set a cloth shopping bag next to his computer.

"What's this?" Peter asked, closing the screen and shutting away the sight of Neal's steadily blinking dot.

"Chicken noodle soup. For Neal."

Peter thought about telling her that Neal undoubtedly had a professional cook making him soup right now. But, just as surely, she already knew. And maybe it didn't matter anyway. It was soup from Elizabeth, not just any soup.

Maybe the important thing wasn't the bare facts of the situation: who had done what to whom, whether there was already soup in Neal's apartment. What mattered was just being there, whether or not it made sense.

"I'll take it to him," he said, and she kissed him.

He took a cab uptown, since he'd already had enough to drink that he didn't think it was responsible to drive. The ride gave him little to do other than think. Not that he hadn't been thinking a lot lately -- going around and around, circling the same set of frustrations and hurts.

But this time he tried to see it from the outside, to draw back from his own hurt and sense of betrayal, and to look at it as an outsider would look at it.

The problem was, he couldn't imagine that any unbiased outsider would think he should have done anything other than put Neal in jail as soon as he was pretty sure about the theft. Or, no, it went farther back than that. An unbiased observer would probably throw his or her hands in the air and conclude that Peter was an idiot who'd gotten exactly what was coming to him.

And then there was the part of him that just couldn't believe it had been ... _Not real?_ But it _was_ real; for all Neal's faults, Peter simply couldn't believe that Neal had been playing him. Neal's affection was real; his fondness was real; his loyalty and compassion and concern were real.

Which was the hell of it, really. Throughout the last three years, Peter had clung to the hope that Neal could change, because he kept seeing that _other_ person -- the one who _wasn't_ a criminal, who craved a life of stability, who was brave and empathetic and genuinely liked helping people. Every time Neal backslid, Peter had allowed himself to believe it was an aberration, that Neal was really trying, that _next_ time it would turn out differently.

And this time Neal had taken Peter down with him.

Peter shuddered, running his hands over his face. He'd never be free, never be safe -- not really. The theft and the bribe would always be hanging over his head, waiting for one of his enemies to unearth it and bring it to light. The mere rumor was all it would take to end his career, or at least set him back badly. The truth would almost certainly send him to prison.

He'd spent his life trying to live honestly, and now there was a secret he had to keep -- and keep out of the hands of people who wanted to do him harm -- or his and El's lives would be destroyed.

"Hey, buddy?" the cabbie said, and Peter raised his head to find that they were sitting outside June's -- and from the cabbie's impatience, had been doing so for awhile.

A light was on in Neal's window. Mozzie was there; Neal might be awake. Peter briefly entertained the idea of leaving the soup at June's door and going back home, but if he was going to pay for a damned expensive cab ride across half the city, he may as well stay more than a minute or two. He paid the man and then let himself into June's.

When he knocked lightly, it was Mozzie who answered the door with a book in one hand. "Suit. I didn't expect to see you back tonight."

Peter held up the bag. "Making a delivery on Elizabeth's behalf. Chicken noodle soup."

"Traditional," Mozzie said, nodding. "Gluten-free noodles?"

"I ... er. Didn't ask."

Mozzie's interest in the bag evaporated. "You can put it over there," he said, waving a hand in a vague direction.

Peter transfered the carton of soup to the refrigerator. He glanced toward Neal's bed, but that corner of the room was dark, Neal visible only as a knot of tangled covers. "How's he doing?"

"Sleeping," Mozzie said. "Feverish. Unwell. Blames you, mostly."

Peter was gearing up for a retort when he realized that Mozzie meant for the flu. Well. That was ... probably accurate. "Did he drink your honey thing?"

"If you mean the Miracle Honey Elixir, yes, he has, so he should soon be on the mend."

"Tell me you're not calling it that."

"Why not?"

"Because it sounds like something you'd buy off the late-night Home Shopping Network," Peter said, and when Mozzie looked intrigued, "That wasn't an idea!"

"Don't bother yourself about it, Suit," Mozzie said. "I have a much more lucrative marketing plan."

"Please stop talking before I have to arrest you."

"Idle threats, Suit. Idle threats." Mozzie set his book down and crossed his arms. "I understand you and Neal are experiencing one of your periodic communication failures."

Peter sighed. "If that's what you want to call it."

"The thing about Neal ..." Mozzie glanced in the direction of his sleeping friend, and pushed his glasses up on his nose before lowering his voice. "He wants to think he's a good person --"

"He _is_ a good person," Peter said without even thinking about it, stung by defensiveness on behalf of his friend.

"I am not going to have that particular discussion with a fed," Mozzie said loftily. "May I continue?"

Peter sputtered a bit, calming down as he realized that he was being offered a rare chance to get another peek into Neal's complicated psychology. "Continue."

"Ethics and morality are, of course, the topic of entire schools of philosophy," Mozzie said. "Much ink has been shed, careers made, friendships destroyed --"

"There is a point here, I presume?"

"The point," Mozzie said, looking slightly annoyed, "is that I am something of an agnostic on the topic of moral ethicism. Neal is a believer. Regrettably, he seems to have internalized the idea that certain actions are not the behavior of good people, among whom he wants to count himself."

"Actions such as stealing things?"

"Actions such as hurting people weaker than himself, or contributing to the net amount of suffering in the world," Mozzie said. "So, he rationalizes. He steals from the rich and tells himself it's different than stealing from the poor. He steals in the interests of protecting others -- such as you -- and calls it a selfless act. Thus he is able to maintain his self-image without such actions weighing down his conscience."

That ... made a lot of sense for Neal, actually. "What about you?" Peter asked.

" _I_ don't need to. On ethical matters I subscribe to neither teleology nor deontology -- ah, I can see by your face that you have no idea what I'm talking about. Quelle surprise. Pick up a philosophy book sometime, Suit. I'm more of a Nietzschean myself, not that I would pigeonhole myself in such narrow terms --"

"Getting back to Neal," Peter said. "What you're saying makes sense. I'm just not entirely sure why you're saying it _now._ If you're trying to excuse what he did, I don't think his reasons matter all that much, rationalizations aside; the important thing is the result."

"Utilitarianism?" Mozzie said, with an exaggerated expression of surprise. "I thought that moral principles were fixed and inviolate, regardless of outcome. Or are you a consequentialist after all?"

"Oh, for God's sake," Peter said. "I'm not even sure why we're having this conversation."

Mozzie looked him straight in the eyes -- one of the few times he'd done that, Peter realized, rather than (like a cat) approaching at an angle. "Because, Suit, I think you do the same thing Neal does. As much as I hate to acknowledge the two of you having that much in common."

"I rationalize?" Peter said, genuinely startled.

"To maintain your image of yourself as a good person, yes. You really should try reading the early utilitarians sometime. Mill and Bentham --"

"I do _not,_ " Peter snapped. "I don't have to. The things I do --"

"-- Are above reproach? Entirely without moral flaws? Really?"

Now he was starting to get angry. "They are _justified_ under the _law._ That's why we _have_ laws --"

"I happen to be aware of a number of occasions upon which you acted in violation of the law, Suit. I was there for several of those occasions."

" _Minor_ violations of the law," Peter said sharply, "in active pursuit of fugitives --"

"I am also aware of the matter of a surveillance tape --"

"He told you about that? Of course he did! That was an aberration," Peter said, "a temporary bout of insanity brought on because Neal backed me into a corner and I didn't have any choice except to --" _To steal the tape or let him go to prison. For trying to do the right thing. And that wasn't an option; it wasn't fair, it wasn't right. It wasn't justice._

"Yes, that doesn't sound like justification at all," Mozzie murmured.

"Oh, my God," Peter said, staring at him. "That _is_ what I'm doing. That's actually what's coming out of my mouth."

"Neal does the same thing, much as I hate to acknowledge it," Mozzie said. "You should hear some of the convoluted pretzel logic that he uses to convince himself that he's actually a law-abiding citizen in the guise of a thief."

"He _is_ a thief."

"I know!" Mozzie said. "But try telling _him_ that."

Which he had, in fact, done. "Yeah, that didn't go over so well."

"People don't like hearing the truth about themselves when it conflicts with their self-image. Case in point," Mozzie said, gesturing at Peter, who had slumped against the kitchen counter. "How is the truth striking you?"

"Not so well," Peter admitted. He heaved a deep and heartfelt sigh. "So Neal is a criminal, except he doesn't want to believe it. I'm a ..." He couldn't quite say it. Criminal? He'd broken laws, certainly.

_Because I had to._

No. There was always another choice. He just hadn't taken it. Not with the surveillance tape in the Howser Clinic. Not when he told Neal to run.

_Because the other choice, the legal choice, was unthinkable._

There were many people who probably would not have found it so. Kramer. Siegel, perhaps. Still, he'd gotten Neal out of the clinic, lied to his superiors about the U-boat treasure, helped Neal escape --

\-- and he'd do it all over again, he thought with weary exasperation. Even knowing the slippery slope he'd now found himself on, with heaven only knew what at the bottom. He wasn't sure if it had been right, but he couldn't look back at any of those decisions and see his conscience being clear the other way, either.

"Damn it, Mozzie, did you _have_ to do this tonight?"

"As if there's a good time for intensely awkward self-reflection," Mozzie said. They stared at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment. "And I think tonight would be an auspicious occasion to ... inventory ... something." He made for the door.

"Wait!" Peter said. Mozzie turned around. "Why _did_ you do this, anyway? I may actually thank you for it one of these days, although you might not want to hold your breath."

Mozzie hesitated in the doorway. "Because Neal is miserable. And so are you. That -- matters, I suppose."

"Because you care," Peter said. If one of them was going to have to suffer a self-reflective crisis tonight, he was by God dragging Mozzie down with him.

He wasn't expecting an answer, but he thought he heard Mozzie say, "It would be easier if I didn't," as he vanished out the door.

Peter dragged his hand through his hair and glanced over at Neal's way. Neal appeared to have slept through their conversation -- either that or he was prudently pretending to.

And Peter suddenly found himself thinking of a conversation he and Neal had had months ago -- in those days before James, before prison, which now seemed hedged with a kind of innocent nostalgia to him. He'd asked Neal for an explanation of Mozzie's spy-parents conspiracy theory ... and Neal had explained. Peter could still remember his words:

_Mozzie tells himself these stories to maintain his faith in the world. His faith, however limited, is all that separates a man with a conscience from a man without one._

The idea that conscience was actually a shell game of polite self-deception chilled him down to his bones. He wanted to rail against it. _It's not a lie, it's real. Conscience is real. Good acts are good acts. I don't believe in things like justice and doing the right thing to deceive myself -- I believe in them because they exist._

Except ... he'd just had the rug jerked out from under him on his own self-deception, because Mozzie was _right_ : he wanted to believe he was a good person, so he convinced himself that the things he'd done were acceptable because he'd done them for good reasons. Even if they were unethical.

Knowing that ... _what was he really capable of?_ Theft? Murder? Corruption?

If self-deception was the basis of morality, then he was basically fucked. Thanks a _lot_ , Mozzie.

The door cracked open and Mozzie stuck his head back in. "He should take another vial in two hours and one at six a.m.--"

"Weren't you _leaving?"_ Peter snapped.

The door clicked shut, leaving the apartment suddenly very quiet and empty.

 

***

 

Neal wasn't sure how long he'd slept before a full bladder drew him back to muzzy wakefulness. It was dark outside the window, but there was a light at the table. Raising his head blearily, he found that Mozzie had been replaced by Peter, sitting in the pool of lamplight.

Cautiously, not wanting to get the nausea or the headache started again, he peeled himself out of bed. As he shuffled past the table toward the bathroom, he noted an empty bottle of wine on the table that he was pretty sure had been full earlier. A second wine bottle next to it was also showing some damage.

"Neal," Peter acknowledged him.

"Peter," Neal croaked warily.

"You're supposed to drink this," Peter said, holding out a hand with a small glass tube in it.

Neal took the vial of honey extract into the bathroom with him, where he drank it in one fast gulp, shuddering at the taste. His throat, however, no longer felt like it was being pierced with knives. He eyed himself in the mirror -- pale, with dark circles under his eyes and sweat plastering his hair to his forehead; not going to be winning any beauty contests anytime soon, but he was pretty sure he would have looked worse this afternoon. He was still weak, achy, and exhausted. But some combination of sleep and Mozzie's extract seemed to have him on the mend.

While he did his business in the bathroom -- slowly and laboriously, with a pause to rest before he washed his hands -- other details of the scene at the table emerged gradually from his memory. Peter hadn't had a book or anything else; he'd just been sitting at the table, not doing anything. Just drinking.

That was completely unlike him. Neal had never seen him do anything like that before.

When he left the bathroom, Neal shuffled to the kitchen sink and poured himself a glass of water. "Get you anything?" Peter asked from behind him. 

Neal looked over his shoulder. Peter was refilling his wine glass. "No, I don't need anything. Where's Mozzie?" 

"We talked," Peter said. "He left for a while."

Wonderful -- now Peter and Mozzie were fighting. Although Peter didn't really sound angry. Neal finished his glass of water and poured himself another one. He thought about going back to bed, but he wasn't really sleepy, so he sat down across from Peter instead. Peter gave him a look that was half inquisitive and half annoyed.

"Not a wine guy, huh?" Neal asked, nodding at the bottle.

"Any port in a storm, I guess." Peter took a long drink from the glass, mostly draining it. "How are you feeling?"

"Better than earlier," Neal admitted.

Peter's grin flickered briefly. "That stuff works, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Though I don't know if I want to admit it to Mozzie."

"It's a wonder drug. He should market it," Peter said, and then added quickly, "After proper FDA approval and drug trials, of course."

"Of course," Neal said, and he felt himself smile, slipping back for an instant into the rapport they normally shared. Then Peter looked away and the moment was gone. 

"Why _are_ you here, anyway?" Neal asked. He reminded himself that he was angry at Peter (with good reason), and Peter was angry at him (unjustly and for no cause whatsoever), and they were not supposed to be doing things like hanging out at his kitchen table with Peter drinking his wine.

"Oh," Peter said. "Brought you soup. From El. 's in the fridge."

The trouble was, it was _hard_ to stay mad at Peter. It always had been hard not to like Peter, even when Peter had been the FBI agent who was trying to catch him and Neal really should have hated and resented him. Now, when Peter had been twisted and tangled into his life for the better part of a decade ... maybe it was just that he was too tired and sick to hold onto his resentment at the moment, but he looked across the table at Peter -- crumpled and probably more than halfway to being drunk -- and he wasn't angry. He wasn't sure what he was feeling.

Peter topped off his wine glass, and Neal moved himself to say, carefully, "Are you ... okay?"

It was a long time before Peter replied. At last he said, without meeting Neal's eyes, "I'm scared."

A shiver ran through Neal that had nothing to do with the flu. He'd never heard Peter say something like that before. "Of what?"

Peter looked down at his hands on the tabletop. "Myself."

Neal hesitated before asking, "Because of the bribe?"

"Because of the ... the everything." Peter's hand clenched on the stem of the wine glass; Neal winced and hoped June would understand if they ended up with one fewer in the morning. "I've never been -- you know, I'm okay with bending the rules a little bit to help people. I mean, the rules are there for a reason, but sometimes you _can't_ get things done the right way, and if it comes down to following the rules and someone getting hurt, or helping them, you have to go for the option that lets you look at yourself in the mirror."

Neal made a faintly encouraging noise.

"I _am_ a good person!" Peter burst out. "I mean, I try to be. I don't always get there, but I do try." He gave Neal an intense look across the table. "You are, too."

"... thanks?" Neal was now getting the impression he'd missed something. What _had_ Peter and Mozzie been talking about? "Peter, do you need to lie down for a bit?"

"I do not need to lie down," Peter said, enunciating carefully. "I need to discuss this. Because we have things to discuss."

Oh God. "Would you like to watch a game?" Neal said with mounting desperation. "The TV is right over there and there's, uh, there's probably a game of some kind." Which, in his current state, he could almost certainly sleep through, especially if it kept Peter from attempting to have Drunken Conversations About Feelings with him.

"I'm sorry," Peter said.

Neal's train of thought derailed and went off a cliff. "What?"

"Sorry," Peter said more softly. "I'm sorry. I mean, it's been a rough year, a _really_ rough year, and I was trying -- I really _was_ trying to do the right thing, for both of us, and I don't know ... There's a real mess here, and I know I'm partly to blame, and I'm sorry."

Neal couldn't remember Peter apologizing to him before. There were a lot of things he could have said, a lot of things he could have done, but something caught somewhere between his chest and throat, like a fishhook sinking in and snagging. He'd never meant things to get this out of hand, and suddenly the weight of it felt like it was coming down on him, crushing him. He'd expected Peter to be angry when the truth about the bribe came out, but never realized he'd be _hurt._ Nobody was supposed to get hurt, and people _always_ kept getting hurt --

The world tilted sideways. Neal was dimly aware of a clatter and Peter saying his name and then he was being let down to the floor, a bit clumsily, but gently. Neal blinked and the world stabilized somewhat, the gray retreating to the corners of his vision. He was leaning against the wine rack, with Peter sitting next to him, looking anxious.

"You shouldn't be out of bed," Peter said.

"Bed's all the way over there," Neal mumbled, not ready to move yet.

Peter got up, staggering a little. By the time he came back, bringing two pillows and a blanket, Neal had managed to extricate himself from a reclining position until he was mostly sitting up. Peter started trying to arrange the pillows around him, but was too drunk to make it work properly.

"Stop it," Neal complained, taking the pillows away. He propped himself up with one and tossed the other into Peter's lap. "There."

"I don't think it's good for you to keep fainting."

"I'm not doing it on purpose." Neal caught hold of the edge of the blanket and dragged it over his legs, though most of it was still in Peter's lap. He wondered if Peter would leave if he pretended to fall asleep. But he didn't really want Peter to leave. It was oddly companionable, sitting here on the floor like this.

And he missed it. He missed _Peter._

"I'm sorry, too," Neal said, plucking at the blanket. "I mean, I don't regret doing what I did, but I -- I didn't mean for it to -- I didn't want things to blow up like this."

He felt Peter's leg stiffen where it rested against his. "You had no _right,"_ Peter said.

"Probably not," Neal acknowledged. He looked up at Peter, wanting him to understand. "But I'd still do it again. I'm sorry I hurt you. I really am. But I did the right thing, Peter. I _did."_

"Explain it to me then," Peter said, sounding desperate. "Make me understand."

"What?"

" _Explain_ it, Neal. Convince me. That's what grownups do, right? We talk. We disagree, but we take our different views of things and we, we ..." He groped for the wineglass, realized it was still on the table, and gave up, tilting instead against the wine rack next to Neal. He was _really_ drunk, Neal realized, just containing it very well. 

"We talk," Peter finished, almost in a whisper. "So, let's talk about it. You said you wouldn't do it differently, that it was the right choice. Let me see what you saw. Show me."

Neal's first impulse was _lie and obfuscate!_ ... and his next urge was to suspect a trap. But this was something he wasn't sure if Peter had offered him before. It had always been Peter making the rules and Neal following or breaking them. Now he was inviting Neal to explain his own rules and Neal wasn't sure how to deal with it, especially since the actual explanation was full of things he didn't want to talk about.

 _But why not?_ he thought, reckless. It wasn't as if Peter could be angrier than he already was.

... well, no, he easily could. He could put Neal back in prison.

And yet, he was waiting. Listening.

"It was because of me," he tried to explain. "Because of my dad. Because you tried to help us, and instead -- I wasn't going to let you go to prison, Peter. I couldn't let you lose your career and your freedom because of me. I would have done anything to stop that from happening."

"You could have let the system work, Neal. Given it a shot."

Neal closed his eyes briefly. "I couldn't. It wouldn't have helped. That prosecutor was already rotten, Peter. He wasn't going to give you a fair chance. I _had_ to."

There was silence beside him. Neal risked a peek. Peter didn't really look angry, but maybe, as in Neal's case, he was just too tired to be. Neal didn't know if he'd ever seen Peter look so exhausted. "You could have talked it over with me."

"You would have told me not to," Neal pointed out -- reasonably, he thought.

"Well, _yes,"_ Peter said with a small flare of temper. "That's because I _wouldn't want you to do it._ It's my life, Neal. I'm going to have to live forever with what you've done."

"I know," Neal admitted, tugging on a loose thread in the blanket. "But I would too, and I -- I don't think I could have lived with you going to prison because of me. It's not fair and it's not just and I don't ... it wasn't going to happen."

"You can't make those decisions for me."

"I know," Neal said. "And ... I'm not sure if I did. I made it for me. If I could go back in time, Peter, and do it differently, knowing you'd go away forever ... I wouldn't."

"There are more than two options," Peter said. "It's not just ... me in prison forever, or you breaking the law. We can figure this stuff out, if neither of us go running off half-cocked."

"A gun metaphor, Peter? Seriously?"

Peter laughed, soft and drunk and affectionate, and Neal's chest unclenched for what felt like the first time in weeks. He tipped his head back against the pillow-padded wine rack and turned to meet Peter's eyes. " _I'm_ the one who did it," he pointed out. "You're not responsible for what I do."

"Neal, I _am_ legally responsible for what you do," Peter said.

"Well, yes, but ..." Even drunk, Peter was difficult to successfully argue with. This time, though, Neal had what he was pretty sure was a good counter-argument, one from a distinctively Peterish point of view. "Peter, if you caught someone with stolen property and then found out they believed they'd bought it legitimately and had no idea it was stolen, would you arrest them for theft?"

"In most cases of that sort the suspect had at least _some_ idea; it's not like most people can't figure out that a TV you bought off a guy on the street is probably not --"

Neal kicked him lightly under the blanket with a bare foot.

"Yes, yes," Peter sighed. "It's not that I don't see your point. I didn't know. But --"

"You didn't. I was the one who broke the law. You acted in good faith according to the information you had at the time. Peter, I'm sorry for --" For more than he could say right now, really, with a pre-Columbian sword tucked in a hidden cubbyhole under his bed; with the pieces of the window hidden elsewhere in the apartment, and Hagen on the loose because Neal had put him there.

And it hadn't made him happy; it hadn't made him fulfilled. It had just made him sad and scared and desperate to get back to where he once was, if he could only figure out where he wanted to be. Safe and free and somewhere in Europe, he'd once thought, back to the halcyon days of France and Copenhagen and the Palazzo Sasso in Ravello, Italy. But right now, sick and sitting on the floor in his pajamas with Peter leaning against his shoulder felt better than ... well, better than anything had lately. Mozzie would say it was the illness talking, maybe with a side of Stockholm syndrome, but right now he didn't care a thing for expensive hotel rooms and high-profile heists. He just wanted this.

"I'm sorry I -- broke us," Neal whispered.

Peter's hand moved under the blanket to catch Neal's. It was something he probably wouldn't have done if he hadn't been drunk, but his thumb moved in slow circles across the back of Neal's hand, and Neal found himself relaxing into the touch. "You didn't 'break us'. If blame is going to be assigned, there's more than enough to go around."

"Can we?" Neal asked, perking up a bit.

"Can we what?"

"Assign blame. Because I have a list --"

"No."

"-- starting with all the times you made me fetch coffee --"

"There are not going to be lists," Peter said, and then he half-laughed and squeezed Neal's hand, and Neal thought they might be all right, somehow. Not better, exactly; not back to good, quite yet. But on a road that was heading there.

He hadn't believed it would happen this time. _Maybe we both need to have a little more faith._

Also, Peter was now sagging more and more weight onto his shoulder. And still holding his hand. "Peter," Neal said, nudging him. Then he nudged harder. "Peter!"

Peter mumbled something incomprehensible.

"Peter, come on. I think we should both get off the floor." Not that he really wanted to move, but he could guarantee that if Peter fell asleep here, there was no way Neal could move him somewhere softer.

Peter grumbled, but they got each other up, leaning against each other, and wobbled across the room, where Peter dropped Neal onto the bed. "You want, uh. Water or something?" Peter was clearly half asleep and struggling to keep his thoughts together.

"I'm okay. _You_ should drink some water or you're going to be miserable in the morning."

"Uh huh," Peter said, and sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed. "I think I should go home."

Neal pushed himself up on his elbows. "No, El would strangle me if I kicked you out in this condition. Sleep here. Thank God tomorrow is Saturday."

"Couch," Peter said, staring vacantly at the couch as if it were on the moon rather than eight feet from the bed.

"Peter, the bed's big enough for two people," Neal said, and rolled over, discovering in the process that there were fewer pillows than usual. Right. On the floor. He was pretty sure he could fall asleep without them, and he wasn't inclined to get up and get them.

The weight on the bed removed itself, and there was some more drunken shuffling around the room. A glass of water clunked on his nightstand, spilling only a little, and a pillow landed on his head. By the time Neal slowly and sleepily extricated himself, Peter had flopped on the other half of the bed and, from all appearances, passed out.

Neal sat up enough to roll him onto his side, facing away -- just in case -- and then flipped a corner of the comforter over him. 

They'd sleep. And in the morning they'd be -- well, Peter would be hung over, and Neal would still be sick (though less sick than he had been, thanks to Mozzie and his wonder drugs), and there would be things to talk about. Lots of uncomfortable things to talk about. Assuming Peter didn't just take off in the night.

There were still secrets -- most particularly regarding Hagen and the window. And Siegel. There was a lot to work out.

 _But we can,_ Neal thought, and then, surprising himself, _I want to._ It was worth working it out, rather than burning his bridges and leaving.

"Good night, Peter," he said quietly.

He'd thought Peter was asleep, but then a hand reached over to clumsily pat his shoulder before retreating again.

_We'll be okay._

* * *

**BONUS SCENE!**

Here's an extra scene that I wrote in the process of working on the above story but ended up having to delete because it didn't really fit with the flow of their conversation. I figured I'd include it here as a bonus, because it's cute and I liked the concept as a possible solution to both their respective moral crises. Perhaps it's part of their conversation the next day.

 

"I have a suggestion," Neal said, "but I don't think you're going to like it."

"Neal, the number of things I've heard tonight that I don't like are limitless. Lay another one on me."

Neal stared at the table legs. "We can be each other's reality check."

He risked a careful look at Peter, whose expression was completely unreadable. "You're saying you want me to look to you for _ethical guidance?"_

"Not ... entirely? The thing is, Peter, I think I've gotten to know you pretty well over the --" _Last three years,_ he almost said, but it was much longer than that, wasn't it? Peter had been in his life for nearly a decade. And Neal had been learning all he could about his nemesis since the very early days. He was a social engineer; reading people -- their strengths, their weaknesses, their moral limits -- was what he did. "... since we've known each other," he said. "I know _you._ Sometimes you surprise me, but mostly I know what you'll do and what you won't do. And I know when you're acting out of character."

He was half braced for anger -- and wouldn't have blamed Peter, even -- but instead Peter was studying him with a speculative look. "You're saying that if I ... I don't know, take a bribe, something like that -- you'll call me on it."

"Yes," Neal said, and he smiled, relieved. Peter _did_ get it.

"You want to set yourself up as my _conscience_?"

... or not. "No, I'm saying you can outsource your conscience to me."

"That's basically the same thing."

"No, it's _your_ moral compass, not mine. You just have to trust me to be honest with you. And, Peter ... I don't lie to you."

_You just have to trust me._

"So what am _I_ supposed to do in this completely insane arrangement?" Peter wanted to know. "Remind you when you're, I don't know, pulling off the wrong kind of heist?"

"No, no, no. Peter, you just keep doing what you've been doing all along."

Peter stopped on the edge of gearing up for what Neal could tell would have been a major rant, derailed in the middle of rant ramp-up. "What?"

"You've always showed me who I can be," Neal said quietly. "I'm just saying, I can remind you who you _are._ If you let me."

Peter just looked at him, and there was a long silence. Finally Peter said, "I hope we haven't just talked ourselves in a three-state crime spree."

They stared at each other in worry.

"Elizabeth will save us," Neal said at last.

"Are you kidding? Elizabeth will be driving the getaway car."

**Author's Note:**

> As always, no character-bashing in comments, please. :) I love and sympathize with both of these guys, and comments tearing down either of them make me sad.


End file.
